Prologue
The fat old woman, gray hair scraggling from beneath a battered hat, teeth blackened, was surprisingly agile as she hoisted herself onto the seat of the big wagon. Behind her lay a variety of fresh vegetables covered with a dampened canvas.
“Sadie.”
She looked to her left to see Reverend Thomas, tall, handsome, his brow furrowed in concern.
“You’ll be careful? You won’t try anything foolish? Or call attention to yourself?”
“I promise,” Sadie said in a soft, young-sounding voice. “I’ll be back in no time.” With that, she clucked to the horses and set off at a lumbering pace.
The road out of the town of Chandler, Colorado, and into the coal mine that was Sadie’s domain was long and rutted. Once, she had to wait for a train to pass on one of the spur lines of the Colorado and Southern Railroad. Each of the seventeen coal camps outside Chandler had its own train line into the camp.
Outside the turnoff to the Fenton mine Sadie passed another huckster wagon with another old woman sitting on the seat. Sadie halted her four horses, scanning the landscape as far as she could see.
“Any trouble?” Sadie quietly asked the other old woman.
“None, but the union talk is stronger. You?”
Sadie gave a curt nod. “There was a rumble in tunnel number six last week. The men won’t take the time to shore up as they dig. Do you have any peppermint?”
“Gave it all away. Sadie,” the woman said, leaning closer, “be careful. The Little Pamela is the worst one. Rafe Taggert scares me.”
“He scares a lot of people. Here comes another wagon.” Her voice deepened as she hijahed to the horses. “See you next week, Aggie. Don’t take no wooden nickels.”
Sadie drove past the men on the approaching wagon and raised her hand in greeting. Moments later, she was turning down the long road into the Little Pamela mine camp.
The road was steep as she travelled up into the canyon and she didn’t see the guard post until she was in front of it. In spite of herself, her heart began pounding.
“Mornin’, Sadie. You got any turnips?”
“Big, fat ones.” She grinned, showing her wrinkles and rotted teeth.
“Save me a sackful, will ya?” he said, as he unlocked the gate. There was no question of payment. Opening the gate to allow an outsider into the closed camp was payment enough.
The guards were posted there to make sure no union organizers got inside. If they suspected anyone of trying to organize the miners, the guards shot first and asked questions later. With that kind of power, all the guards had to do was say whomever they’d killed was a unionist and both the local and state courts freed them. The mine owners had a right to protect their property.
Sadie had to work to maneuver the big four-horse wagon through the narrow, coal-littered streets. On each side of her were frame boxes that the mine owners called houses, four or five tiny rooms, with a privy and coal shed out back. Water was drawn by buckets from a coal-infested community well.
Sadie moved the horses past the company store and coolly greeted the store owner. They were natural enemies. The miners were illegally paid in scrip so a family could purchase what it needed only from the company store. Some people said the mine owners made more money off the company store than they did from the coal.
To her right, between the railroad tracks and the steep mountainside, was Sunshine Row—a straggling line of double houses painted a ghastly yellow. There were no yards and only fifteen feet between houses and privies. Sadie knew too well the combination of train smoke and noise combined with the other smells. This was where the new mine workers lived.
Sadie halted her horses before one of the larger mine houses.
“Sadie! I thought you weren’t coming,” a pretty young woman said as she came out of the house, drying her wet hands and arms on a thin towel.
“You know me,” Sadie said gruffly, as she laboriously dismounted. “I slept late this mornin’ and my maid forgot to wake me. How you been, Jean?”
Jean Taggert gave a grin to the old woman. Sadie was one of the few outsiders allowed into the camp, and each week Jean was afraid the mine police would search her wagon.
“What did you bring?” Jean asked in a whisper.
“Cough medicine, liniment, a little morphine for Mrs. Carson, a dozen pairs of shoes. There’s not much I can hide inside a head of cabbage. And lace curtains for Ezra’s bride.”
“Lace curtains!” Jean gasped, then laughed. “You’re probably right. Lace will do more for her than anything else. Well, come on, let’s get started.”
It took Jean and Sadie three hours to distribute the vegetables, the townspeople paying Sadie in scrip—which Jean would later return to them in secret. The mine owners nor the camp police nor even most of the miners themselves had any idea that Sadie’s vegetables and secret goods were free. The miners were proud and wouldn’t have liked taking charity—but the women would take anything they could get for their children and their tired husbands.
It was late when Sadie and Jean returned with the empty wagon to Jean’s house.
“How’s Rafe?” Sadie asked.
“Working too hard, as is my father. And Uncle Rafe is stirring up trouble. You have to go. We can’t risk your getting into trouble,” she said, taking Sadie’s hand. “Such a young hand.”
“Trouble . . .?” Sadie began, confused. She jerked away, making Jean laugh.
“Next week then. And Sadie, don’t worry about me. I’ve known for a long time.”
Confused into speechlessness, Sadie climbed into the wagon and clucked to the horses.
An hour later, she was parked at the back of the old rectory in Chandler. In the twilight evening, she ran through the unlocked door, down a short hall, and into the bathroom where clean clothes hung from a hook.
Quickly, she tore the wig from her head, washed the theatrical makeup from her face, scrubbed the black gum from her teeth. In another quick motion, she slipped out of the hot, padded clothes that made her look fat, and pulled on drawers and petticoats of fine lawn, a white linen corset that she laced in front, and stepped into a tailored skirt of blue serge edged with jet beads. A pale green silk blouse was covered with a jacket of blue serge trimmed with the new green looking glass velvet.
As she was fastening her
dark blue leather belt, a knock sounded.
“Come in.”
Reverend Thomas opened the door and stood for a moment gazing at the woman before him. Miss Houston Chandler was tall, slim and beautiful, with dark brown hair highlighted with red glints, wide-set blue-green eyes, a straight, aristocratic nose and a small, perfectly-shaped mouth.
“So, Sadie has gone for another week.” The reverend smiled. “Now, Houston, you must go. Your father—.”
“Stepfather,” she corrected.
“Yes, well, his anger is the same whatever his title.”
“Did Anne and Tia make it back with their wagons?”
“Hours ago. Now get out of here.”
“Yes, sir.” She smiled. “See you next Wednesday,” she called over her shoulder as she left by the front door of the rectory and began to walk briskly toward home.
Chapter 1